laboratory

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Week 31
Experiments for
Hanami Design
Experiment results
Weeks 30 (2011)
Posted in laboratory as , , ,
Date: Aug 01, 2011
5 comments

Weeks 30-31 Results & Experiments

My on-going experiments with work and life hacks

Lean and mean is the theme for Week 31.

  1. Evernote as comprehensive organization and life tool [Inconclusive]
    While Evernote could very well be the killer app for organizing one’s entire life, I’ve come to realize that I’ve been spending too much time organizing and not enough time doing. On hold, for now.
  2. Evernote project template [Failure]
    So much effort with so little reward. How many tasks could I have completed if I’d not have bothered?
  3. Daily battle plan [Success]
    One page plan for the day. Tasks are in a flexible order for when I think it’s best to do them. Makes keep on track so much easier and batch processing a cinch.
  4. Date-first project note titles [Success]
    For example: “2011-08-01 Write: Week 30-31 Results & Experiments”. Even if the dates are arbitrary, my project folder now prioritizes itself so what I need to be working on is always at the top.
  5. Streamline my GTD system [In progress]
    Taking a hard look at the waste in my system. What good is being organized if I’ve not saved myself time?

Have a productive week, everybody!

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2011 at 6:05 am and is filed under laboratory . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Weeks 30-31 Results & Experiments”

  1. 1
    Andreas | Reply
    September 9, 2011 at 5:40 am

    What was your problem with your Evernote project template?

    • 1.1
      Weszt | Reply
      September 9, 2011 at 8:41 am

      Hi Andreas,

      Too much setup and maintenance, basically. Far too much effort to get a project “ready” when I could have been doing tasks.

      Once I tried going without the template, I found I was at least getting the same amount done but without the upfront work.

      Have you used the template or anything like it? I’m interested to hear what others are doing.

  2. 2
    Andreas | Reply
    September 9, 2011 at 1:32 pm

    Hi Weszt,

    found your project template and thought about using it but never did.

    My GTD setup consists of simple todo notes (1 todo = 1 note), which are tagged by context and/or by person and/or by day/month (31 day tags, 12 month tags). The note title indicates the todo topic (i.e. customer, application, project,…) and the next action. The note body keeps the details (text, attachements, project actions,…) where necessary.

    With this setup i don’t need a separate project list and so a project template wouldn’t really be useful for me too.

    Cheers,
    Andreas

    • 2.1
      Weszt | Reply
      September 9, 2011 at 2:08 pm

      Thanks for the info, Andreas – very interesting.

      So basically when you look at your notes, you’re looking at what you need to do, correct? I’ll need to think a bit about that. I see the advantage of being able to instantly see what you need to do, grouped by context/time/person.

      At my last job, I was accountable daily for project updates. For that, it was very helpful to have separate project notes and tasks within. Not working there now, might be worth exploring new ways!

      • 2.1.1
        Andreas |
        September 9, 2011 at 3:32 pm

        Yes, correct, my notes view is my todo list, which can be grouped or filtered by tags and/or by topics (= note title).

        Don’t like it when tasks, especially next actions, are buried somewhere in notes bodies, makes it difficult for me to keep track of them.

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